This is the first time I have ever
reviewed a graphics card, so bare with me while I work through this
review. The Matrox G400 32MB Dual Head is an AGP card, it supports both 2X
and 4X (In theory, although no X4 motherboards are out yet) AGP slots on
various motherboards. AGP stands for Advanced Graphics Port which means
that it offers better graphical performance over plain old PCI slots that
most graphics cards used to use.

The easiest way for me to explain what
drivers are is as follows, they help run all of the hardware etc on your
PC. Ok then, this simply means that they have to be good quality to help
you get the most out of your new hardware so judging whether the drivers
that come with a graphics card are good or not is a very important part of
the review.

Installation

The Matrox G400 32MB Dual Head comes
packed with Drivers, S-Video Cable and the card (Obviously). Installation
is very simple, all you need to do is to shut down your PC and remove
whatever graphics card you had in there before. You do this by opening up
your PCs case and taking out the card from either a PCI or AGP slot, once
this is done you place the Matrox G400 32MB Dual Head card into the AGP
slot and close up the PC case once more.

Then you need to connect your
monitor/monitors up to the G400, if you are lucky enough to have two
monitors then as you should know by now, the G400 will make full use of
them. Next up you turn on your PC, as in my case your Bios might tell you
that it has updated its configuration to make better use of the AGP card.
Once Windows has loaded Plug & Play kicks in and begins to setup your
card, it asks for the drivers off the of installation CD and after once
final reboot you are basically ready to go.

Settings & Basic
Software

Now that you have all of the drivers
installed, it gives you a chance to look at some of the new cards settings
and software. The first thing you are likely to notice is the new Icon in
your system tray at the bottom right of your desktop

This feature is called the Matrox
QuickDesk and it allows you to run diagnostic checks to see if everything
is running ok, jump to display properties and try out Matrox DeskNav. You
can also save Windows settings and icon settings.

DeskNav -
you can use this program to zoom in on your Windows desktop area and to
quickly move your view area. To start DeskNav, use the Matrox QuickDesk
menu. With the DeskNav desktop preview, you can "navigate" while
you're using the Matrox zoom feature or a multi-display desktop. The
desktop preview shows you an image of your current desktop, including
what's off-screen while zooming. If you're using a multi-display desktop,
the DeskNav desktop preview shows a representation of each display in your
system.

As you might be able to tell from
the image above, you can double-click the preview area to move your mouse
pointer to the corresponding location on your desktop. Right-click the
preview area for a context menu. While you're using the zoom feature, you
can move your view area simply by clicking or dragging on the desktop
preview. A rectangle in the desktop preview shows where your current view
area is relative to your desktop area.

Desktop Properties:
Most of you will be familiar with the Desktop Properties tag, well the
G400 drivers add a few new features for you to get to grips with. If you
click on the advanced tag in settings you are greeted with a number of new
tabs for you to read through such as the one below.

As you can tell from the Image above this
makes it a little bit easier to find out just how up to date your drivers
and bios settings are, it also gives you easy access to memory and serial
number information (I think this will be important once X4 motherboards
are available for reasons I will explain later). From the tab above you
can then move on to any of the other options such as DualHead,
Monitor Settings, Color
Settings and Options.

Manual

The Matrox G400 includes a large manual
inside the box (Large because it includes other languages). This is the
one this on setup that I was a little bit disappointed in. Although it
offers a very good walkthrough for new users on how to setup their new
card it doesn't go into as much detail on other settings such as Dual Head
and the special options on the Desktop Properties menu as I would have
liked. Adequate but not as good as it should have been.

Thankfully though Matrox have provided
some pretty good information for you to check through via the installation
CD. It includes hardware info, support and troubleshooting guides,

This site is not related
to the Microsoft Corporation in any way. Windows and the Windows
logo are trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation. ActiveWindows
is an independent site. The information and sources here are obtained from
series of hard work & research.